[B-Greek] Critical Text question

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Jan 18 08:54:37 EST 2008


On Jan 17, 2008, at 7:12 PM, Karlton Douglas wrote:

> I recently came across a web site that mentioned the aleph and beta  
> CT texts
> not only disagree with each other, they also have later corrections  
> written
> upon them.
> http://www.dtl.org/versions/article/why_nkjv/part_two.htm
>  My questions: are these two of the most reliable CT texts? and is the
> point that they disagree with each other valid? and  do they indeed  
> have
> later corrections written upon them?

I suppose that what is meant by "aleph and beta" indicated in the  
first paragraph above are the Biblical MSS. Sinaiticus, usually  
indicated by the Hebrew letter Aleph, and Vaticanus, usually indicated  
by the Greek letter Beta. This is NOT the proper forum to discuss text- 
critical issues, especially the matter of preference of the Critical  
Text of the GNT vis-a-vis the Majority Text and/or the Textus  
Receptus. I suggest only this much:
(1) I doubt that any of those who prefer the Critical Text would  
imagine that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are sufficient by themselves to  
establish a critical text of the GNT; certainly NA27 and UBS4 were not  
established on that basis.
(2) I think that you would do best to read one of the standard  
introductions to NT Textual Criticism rather than accept at face value  
what you're told by a proponent of TR, MT, or CT.

Resource lists worth checking are:
http://www.ntgateway.com/resource/textcrit.htm
http://faculty.bbc.edu/RDecker/nt_txtcr.htm
For books: http://tinyurl.com/2zwbaa
(or http://books.google.com/books?q=nt+textual+criticism&source=citation&ots=AfldTucZFj&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=bottom-3results&hl=en)


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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